Paine's Park, a multi-use public skateboarding space, opened yesterday. Though the park was designed with skating and skateboarders in mind, it is not just a skate-park. Skate-friendly elements combine with public amenities like seating to create a hybrid space.
Paine's Park was inspired by attempts to ban skateboarders from LOVE park, where they had coexisted peacefully with multipurpose use for years. (This attempt to ban skaters from the park inspired Edmund Bacon, the city planner who designed the park to skateboard through the park in protest at the age of 92.)
Paine's Park was also designed with safety in mind: the entrances and exits to the park are cobblestone, to discourage skating in and out of the park and prevent collisions. There are also benches designed specifically to be difficult to use as skate elements, reserving them for people who want to sit on them.
Though Philadelphia still has a very low ratio of skate parks to skaters, the Franklin's Paine Skatepark Fund, which brought the Paine's Park project to fruition, is working on a Skatepark Master Plan for the city, to encourage the creation of more skate-friendly spaces.
· Scenes From the Opening of Paine's Park [Hidden City]
· New Park Opens for Philly Skateboarders [CBS Philly]
· Curbed Coverage of Paine's Park [Curbed Philly]